President congratulates Doreen Valentin on promotion to hotel manager |06 April 2022

Ms Valentin with President Ramkalawan at State House (Photo: Joena Meme)

President Wavel Ramkalawan has personally congratulated Doreen Valentin on her new promotion to hotel manager at DoubleTree by Hilton Seychelles - Allamanda Resort and Spa.

Ms Valentin was invited to State House yesterday for the occasion. She was

accompanied by her mother and brother.

The hotel manager said that as the hotel is an international chain of hotels, she and President Ramkalawan discussed that the future developments that Hilton will venture into – whether in Seychelles or abroad – she may progress to general manager in a larger establishment.

Currently Ms Valentin is managing a hotel containing 30 rooms and says there are still more prospects in the future.

The hotel manager said her career path has been a long one whereby she started out and trained as a secretary at the Seychelles Polytechnic and as soon as she finished school she immediately went to work at the Polytechnic itself. This was in the department of Business Studies.

Ms Valentin said even during vacation she worked a lot and later she switched to the tourism industry. She highlighted that tourism is what she was always passionate about since her days at the NYS (National Youth Service).

She later moved to the Ministry of Employment as a secretary still and all the skills she acquired was transferrable and later benefitted her when she saw an opening in the hotel industry. This was a secretarial position at Le Meridien Barbarons and she got the job as a secretary in the human resource section.

This is where she felt she developed further in human resource as a month after she started her position her superior at the time took a vacation which helped her work harder and develop further on her own.

Ms Valentin describes herself as an avid learner and said that she stayed two years at Le Meridien Barbarons and later had to transfer to Le Meridien Fisherman’s Cove as they needed her help with human resources as the manager was not in the country. The manager did not return and Ms Valentin was then promoted into the position of human resource manager in which she stayed for 14 years.

In this position Ms Valentin delved into training and gained vast experiences.

She added that when the hotel closed down for renovations, she moved to a hotel on Praslin for five years and later moved to Hilton’s training department and area she expressed she lacked forte. She was then trained and became the Master Trainer and still holds the title today as she still delivers training locally and internationally. In 2017 she gained the position of resort manager at Double Tree by Hilton – Allamanda Resort and Spa.

Ms Valentin said she got the news in March and was surprised as she had not been expecting the role. It was during the visit of the vice-president in charge of the hotel in the regions who announced it to her, promoting her as the hotel manager.

Ms Valentin is currently in her sixteenth year of working at Hilton and she stated that she is very happy.

Marla Simeon